The time has come for our first road trip. We set off with ease down the interstate towards the Cape trying not to look too smug at all the 4th July commuters coming home. The first pit stop with our new wheels (nicknamed Nora the Nissan) was a Dunkin Donuts drive thru for iced hot chocolate. Oh yeah. We know how to live it up!

We have literally fallen on our feet in terms of accomodation here. We were offered a lakeside house in West Yarmouth FOC on the basis there's no hot water. We took it and we could not be more pleased with it. We only apologise to our fellow passengers onto the train to Chicago on Friday :-/

Whilst the drive wasn't long (about 2 hours) the stress of remembering to stay on the right side of the road couples with the sheer step count of the last week got the better of me today so I spent most of the afternoon napping. Thankfully Kate was more than happy chilling on the porch with her sketchbook.

Once a little refreshed we headed out to explore the Cape during 'golden hour' and even found a light house! The houses are so quaint and beautiful. I could move here tomorrow. Being out of the city is also a nice change in pace and very much welcome right now.

Tomorrow we leave the car in Falmouth, MA en route to Martha's Vineyard. How fitting!Read more

Set off from Middletown RI after a leisurely breakfast. Got gas....then spent the next hour seeing places with cheaper prices.
Crossed over the Hope bridge which is undergoing repairs. The car was bouncing on the bridge when we were stopped in traffic for the road works. The scariest bit was driving over the metal honeycomb with which they seemed to be patching the bridge. The poor state of Rhode Island's roads was really noticeable compared to Connecticut's. Crossed into Mass. Where the roads seemed to be better, mostly.
A few (driver-induced) detours notwithstanding, we arrived at Plimoth Plantation museum at lunch time. Got the senior's discount, even though one of us did not qualify? We joined the hundreds of school tours and visited the native American camp and the settlers' village. We spoke to one of the guides who gave us a confusing stream of consciousness monologue. The heatwave peaked in the high 30s Celsius, none of that Fahrenheit madness on this tour!
The town of Plymouth itself looked nice but we decided to head south to Sandwich, where we did the brief walking tour. Unlike Front Royal VA, none of the houses can lay claim to having been owned by the uncle of two actors.
Our quaint motel's ancient AC needed a good run at cooling the room, so we left to dine at Sam's Seafood. An industrial scale version of Tommy's Clam Shack, but only fried options. We are now officially cured of any longing for fried seafood.
Reinvigorated, we drove to Hyannis, which is a bit of a dump. Newport could teach it a thing or two. Saw the young JFK statue outside the town hall. The skies opened so we returned to the hotel to sit out on the balcony's rocking chairs. It had stopped raining by the time we got back to the motel. Wearing our Deep Woods insect repellent of course. It's 20:30 in June and it's almost dark.
I had taken a chance that the temperature control dial was out of sync., before we left for eats. It was. Set one slot to the left turned out to be high-cool. Had a good night's sleep.Read more

We drove from Boston to Cape Cod and on the way we ate lunch at Panera. We popped to the local shopping mall once we arrived, had a look around, grabbed a coffee and then went to dinner. It was a fish themed dinner at Skippers, both of us started with the 'award winning' clam chowder and then I had a crab sandwich and Alice had a fish scrod. It tasted a lot better than it sounds! And that was it.

Song of the Day:
Kungs vs. Cookin' on 3 Burners - This Girl (keep hearing this song everywhere)Read more

Boston gave us a flavour of Late Eighteenth Century American History. Today we are going further back, to that very first ship that landed... and then decided to move on. That ship was the Mayflower which first landed at what was later named Provincetown in 1620 before the crew decided on moving somewhere less sandy, what we now know as Plymouth.

It took Alice and I ninety minutes to drive from our motel at the neck of Cape Cod to its tip at Provincetown. We did the whole tourist experience on arrival and visited the exhibition and climbed the many steps of the Pilgrim Monument. It was a nice sunny day but not clear enough to be able to see the Boston skyline. The area is geographically unique and the main through fare Commercial Street is its focus. There are many cafes and tat shops along here and we leisurely worked our way up and down the street. For lunch the pot pies at the Canteen were very nice. A few hours had passed and we drove back to our motel.

We booked a fancy restaurant for dinner, Ocean House. We had the set meals and Alice's main was chicken with vegetables and I had the shrimp linguine. On the menu an ingredient in the linguine was 'evoo'. Alice and I puzzled over it and I politely asked the waitress what that was. Without blinking she replied 'extra virgin olive oil'. I was not quite sure if I had made a culinary faux pas or if that should have just been written out in the first place. Either way, in future I will no longer need to query evoo! All three courses were enjoyed thoroughly and we headed back to the motel.